TODD BEAMER: The Team Player

TODD BEAMER

As a teenage basketball player, Todd Beamer was the kind of guy you wanted on the free-throw line in a tied game. "He kept cool," recalls his friend Keith Franz. On Sept. 11, as hijackers roughly jolted Flight 93 toward Washington--presumably bound for the U.S. Capitol or the White House--Beamer didn't always keep cool. Unable to reach his family, he ended up talking with a GTE operator, who later recalled Beamer's fear--"We're going down!" he yelled at one point--and his prayers--"Jesus, help me," he cried.

But in the end, Beamer held it together long enough to help save countless lives. The...